Graphic Ink: The Art of Darwyn Cooke

Creator: Darwyn Cooke
Publisher: DC Comics
Published: October 2015

Darwyn Cooke is at the very top of my all time favorite comic book creators. As I began to find an interest in superheroes, I didn’t realize that Cooke was behind most of my favorite things – he designed the opening title to Batman Beyond,  wrote several of my favorite Justice League episodes, and once I started reading DC comics, his masterpieces Batman: Ego, DC: New Frontier, and Superman: Kryptonite were among my very favorites.

Eventually I connected the dots and realized that not only was Darwyn Cooke my favorite creator, but he was also an artistic and writing genius, a truly special and gifted giant of the comic books world who has never – and will never – be replaced.

I am sure a person with deeper artistic and writing knowledge can tell you why he’s an absolute genius. But as a fan, I can tell you that I love his simple, graceful style with thick brushstrokes and a noir, retro, almost 50’s feel; how he isn’t afraid to shy away from the loneliness and the dark underbelly of superhero storytelling; his ability to play with shape and color; his use of wordless panels; how he can create a laugh, a nostalgic sigh, or a poignant moment in an expression or posture scene. Over the years I’ve come to also love how he revitalized Will Eisner’s The Spirit (no offense to Eisner, but that character was made for Darwyn Cooke); his books adapting Richard Stark’s Parker, a must for any noir fan, and some of his other lesser known works.

Graphic Ink is not meant to be a “best of” collection, even though it includes some great stories from the big DC heroes including a Justice League story based on his New Frontier masterpiece, Green Lantern, Batman, and Superman, along with some of his lesser known stories from Doctor Fate, Jonah Hex, and even Looney Tunes. This is best understood as an anthology of some of Cooke’s unpublished work (including his very first DC story which he wrote and illustrated at only 20 years old!), which will make this a must for Cooke collectors, and interspersed are at least a hundred of his covers and full page spreads over the years. Thankfully the comic titles and publishing information are removed from the covers so we can fully enjoy Cooke’s artwork.

This photo is thanks to Wing’s Art!

As a fan, this is a treasure trove, especially if you take the extra ten dollars to invest in the larger version – I’m a loon so I have both, and trust me, the coffee book edition is worth it if you love his art. The collection showcases the range of Cooke’s talent and his influence on the comic book world. The covers in particular show how Cooke was able to create a scene and evoke wonder and feeling with only a few colors and brushstrokes.

That might be the best way to describe Cooke’s work: wonder.

And while you might think that his artwork surpasses his writing, prepare to be delightfully mistaken. Cooke seemed to be able to peer right into the soul of these characters, whether it was analyzing Batman and Bruce Wayne as a sort of bipolar thought experiment in Ego; Selina’s determination and unapologetic sass in Big Score; and Clark Kent’s essential goodness and loneliness in just about every one of his Superman stories. I would need some serious convincing to pick up a Jonah Hex story, but this one by Cooke had me riveted, and it was a dark and heartbreaking tale. Cooke could take any character, literally any character, and make them shine. I was also very pleased to see a few issues with Cooke’s original character, King Faraday (yes it’s meant to be a pun), who isn’t very prominent in DC but was still a phenomenal character – you’ll meet him in Frontier as well as a few Justice League episodes.

Unfortunately, DC missed the boat in several respects with this collection. While there is a nice forward by Cooke, in which he wrote a few sentences about each of the collected issues, there is no focus on Cooke’s biography save for a short “about the author” at the end, nor are there any behind the scenes photos of his artistic and writing process. While of course we can celebrate Cooke’s final product and the incredible amount of work he contributed to DC, this collection doesn’t pay any attention to the man behind it and how the work came to life. This would have been especially interesting since in many cases, Cooke was both writer and artist.

Some would say that this collection was meant to be an art book and solely focus on Cooke’s artwork, but if that were the case, DC would have cared a little bit more about what they were doing.

Because it was maddening to see that many of the full page spreads were left to the back of the book, and at 400+ pages, the binding covers up at least an inch of the center of these pages. This is a HUGE loss, since the focal point of many of those spreads are in the center and therefore the impact of the art is completely lost. (Cooke fans, I want to make a New Frontier joke right now. It’s there, I’m aware of it, so are you, thank you very much.)

Here are some examples. Below you’ll see a picture of a cover and my photo of what it looks like in the book. These are part of a “DC Stands for Darwyn Cooke” celebration in December 2014, in which all 23 of their comics had variant covers drawn by Darwyn – see them all here – and they are all collected in the book as well. (I’m sure people were disappointed when they picked up these variants and realized the issue wasn’t also by him!)

This is Batman & Robin #37:

Green Lantern #37:

Batman/Superman #37, probably the worst of all of them:

And Justice League #37, look at Martian Manhunter in the middle:

This is such an unfortunate part of the book, because this art is absolutely tremendous, some of the best I’ve seen (nope not biased at all), and could have been easily solved if these covers were just in the middle of the book. C’mon, DC. You publish art all. The. Time.

Darwyn Cooke died two years ago (May 2016), a tremendous loss to the comic book industry and a tragic loss for his family as well. Along with all the #ComicsGate crap going on, some dogshit asshole (nope not biased at all) decided to try to tarnish Cooke’s memory and suggest he would take their side. It only takes a moment to see his art and read his stories (especially those highlighting Selina, Jon Stewart and other minority characters) and know that Darwyn Cooke knew, better than most of us, the power and beauty of superheroes, and he would never have taken that side.

If you’re a fan of DC comics, and of comic books in general, Darwyn Cooke’s work is 100% worth your time. I highly recommend DC: New Frontier, Batman: Ego, Superman: Kryptonite, Selina’s Big Score, and his critically acclaimed adaptation of Richard Stark’s Parker. This book is a fantastic introduction to Cooke’s legacy, and absolutely worth the $40 or so for the coffee table book which, aside from the covers at the end, beautifully showcase his work.

I would love to see another coffee table book that highlights his process, interviews with family and colleagues, and celebrates the creator who I’m sure was a wonderful person and also gave so much to me personally as a fan and to comic books as a whole.